Talk:General will

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Hello, I was wondering if anyone can break down what Jean-Jaques Rousseau meant by, "any member who refuses to obey the general will should be forced to do so"

The General will did not start with Rousseau, at the very least both Pascal and Diderot talked about it before he did. -S

[edit] Weird but

What rousseau meant was that those who do not lay down their individual wills, or rights, to the general will, then they will be forced to do so. By submitting your will to the general will you were living in a state of freedom. When you did not submit your individual will to the general will freely, then basically you would be forced to do so, and in that forced to live in freedom. its a weird concept i know

[edit] Merging

[edit] Should this article be merged with the general entry on Rousseau?

I don't think this should be merged with Rousseau's entry. -C

-NO MERGING- I really don't think this should be moved into Rousseau's entry b/c when people go looking for stuff about "general will" and have no idea what they are searching for b/c they are doing it for school (like me!), they won't be able to find anything about it b/c this system probably won't redirect it to the Rousseau article! -RLE

The article on 'gemeral will' should not be merged with the general entry for Rousseau. Instead there should be a seperation of the material specifically concerning the Social Contract, and the general information on Rousseau; if this were the case then I would recommend the article on general will to be merged with the article on the Social Contract. - David_Gruder@hotmail.com

There should be a seperate artical on the Social Contract, agreed. It is not possible to go into detail on the very complex paradoxes present in his work within a general biography. And the Social Contract is a major piece of modern philosophy. -JP

Did you all forget how do use the ~~~~ signature feature..? Anyway, this article should *NOT* be merged. That is completely illogical, the tag is being removed. The French term page will now redirect here because it has been included in the title with a reference to it being French and being synonymous with "general will.." eesh. drumguy⁸⁸⁰⁰ - speak? 07:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)